When Esma Shmeit, who goes by her stage name same as me, left Edmonton all the way back in 2014, her Feng Shui just felt off. The aspiring rapper and R&B singer-songwriter felt increasingly boxed in by Alberta’s then sparse hip-hop scene and longed for a larger community in which to grow.
“It didn’t feel like my genre was here,” same says of the state of Edmonton’s music scene back in the 2010s. “It just didn’t seem like you could have the same opportunity [as a hip-hop artist] here that you could in Toronto.”
But a decade later, and after six years in The Six working with some of Canada’s heaviest hip-hop hitters, same is back in Edmonton dropping her debut album and making sure nothing is fucking with her Feng Shui this time.
same’s album, Sweet Dreams, and the music video for the album’s titular song, officially drops this week with an album release party at 99ten on February 15.
The album itself is a bombastic mix of self-produced and penned tracks that span the gaps between pop, hip-hop and R&B with an energy and snark (and let’s be honest, style, too) that has earned the emcee comparisons to Billboard heavyweights like Nicki Minaj.
Thematically, Sweet Dreams runs the gamut from the swaggering cockiness of “Mrs. Van Gogh” and “Feng Shui” – originally produced for Snoop Dogg — to the socially aware message of “Spare Change” and the tenderness of heartbroken ballad, “Strings.“
“I try to bring a lot of different themes and emotions to the record,” same says. “There are fun party songs, entertaining songs … and baddie songs about just taking out anger. They’re songs about life.”
But where the album really shines is in same’s cohesive command of the producer’s chair. With an impressive use of Middle Eastern instrumentation (same is of Lebanese and Syrian descent) that cranks up the album’s funk factor and cut-ins of her impressive vocal range (watch out, Mariah), the entire album feels like a singular unit onto itself, with each song complimenting the next seamlessly even as they traverse different genres, tempos and themes.
That prowess as a producer is a big deal for same, who cut her teeth under the tutelage of Juno Award winner RichKidd and famed producer and A&R Roy Hamilton III — now the executive producer of the album — and who prides herself on advocating for more female representation at the producer’s desk.
“Only two per cent of producers are female and even less are women of colour. It became really important to me to produce my own work and to advocate [for women],” same says. “I think having women in non-traditional roles like engineering and producing and not just as the artist and the face is really important.”
Outside of dropping this album, same is working to help further cultivate the hip-hop community in Edmonton and share some of the tricks of the trade she learned in bigger markets like Toronto and Los Angeles with the next generation of artists eager to get into the mix.
“It’s been so positive,” she says of returning to her hometown. “I’m working with Alberta Music and I’ve been able to mentor artists and connect with others that I wasn’t aware of.
“I don’t believe in gatekeeping. I think you grow when you share knowledge … so the fact I can do that for others has been a real reward,” she says.
If all this talk has you sweet dreamin’ of seeing same as me live, you can get tickets to the album release.
